Politics and views in the United States.

The SAVE Act, requiring proof of citizenship to vote, is moving in the U.S. House. Environmental groups want the U.S. Senate to kill a bill they say falsely claims to slow climate change, and the agriculture industry is concerned about mass migrant deportations.

TRANSCRIPT

Welcome to 2025 talks where we're following our democracy in historic times.

What this bill would do is that you would have to physically show up with your first certificate and photo ID or your passport and go to the office every time you want to register to vote or even update your registration.

Sydney Bryant with the Center for American Progress says the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act would deny the vote to eligible Americans.

The SAVE Act is likely to pass the Republican-led House.

It's part of ongoing conservative efforts to stop non-citizen voting, which almost never happens.

Bryant said state ID laws have denied the ballot to citizens who don't have easy access to documents.

Most Americans don't keep a valid passport and many married women don't have a birth certificate showing their married name.

Environmentalists say another House bill promoted as reducing forest fires won't do that.

The Fix Our Forests Act would loosen the law requiring environmental review and public input for major actions on federal land, including logging.

Critics charge its real aim is producing more lumber.

Massachusetts Democratic Senator Ed Markey notes combating the climate change that's feeding wildfires requires more renewable energy.

But he says the administration just points to diversity, equity and inclusion programs as a distraction.

They keep invoking DEI, but we know that DEI to Donald Trump just means defending Elon's interests.

It's just such an incredible power and money grab.

Commenting on negotiations in Saudi Arabia, President Donald Trump said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky "should have never started" the war with Russia.

Trump's moves for mass deportations could dramatically reduce the number of migrant farm workers.

According to USDA, around half of all agricultural workers are immigrants and more than 40 percent didn't have authorization to work in the country.

Manuel Griego-Silcox with the Virginia-based Legal Aid Justice Center says Trump's policies haven't had much impact there yet.

We will know about this when the season starts.

But I think around May, April, we'll see how this plan will be affecting farms and crops, especially in the summer, the harvesting season, when it's more labor-intensive.

Griego-Silcox said the demand for H-2A visas, which led companies to hire foreign workers for agricultural jobs, is likely to rise dramatically.

California educators are opposing congressional plans to pay for extending tax cuts by slashing Medicaid.

Medi-Cal pays for more than a third of California children's health care and the care of more than half of kids in the LA Unified School District.

Corey Tamblyn, a school psychologist at Pajaro Valley, says they depend on it for the assessments they do every day.

So a lot of times we serve as the intermediary to identify things that are happening in students like autism, as well as mental health disorders.

Without these monies, I do think we're going to be less supportive of our families.

More burdens are going to be put on families.

He says kids who get that preventive care are less likely to be absent from class, more likely to graduate from high school and college and earn higher wages in adulthood.

Community clinics and rural hospitals nationwide say they're bracing for major cuts.

I'm Edwin J. Villera for Pacifica Network and Public News Service.

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